


like never before (like you always will)

by cryingwillow



Category: Marvel, X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Genosha, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Telepathy, basically just my big feelings about them!, i have a lot!, or alternatively: just their love story. they're In Love guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24492439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryingwillow/pseuds/cryingwillow
Summary: You wish you could love each other the way you deserve.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	like never before (like you always will)

**Author's Note:**

> and now,

You push the door open to a blast of cold air, but you barely have time to breathe it in or even look at the neighbourhood outside before a voice behind you speaks.

“Erik, if you’re not late…” Charles peers at you from the next room, around the corner. His smile is crooked, nervous, and it puts you on edge. “Can we talk for a moment?”

You drop into the seat across from him, almost too quickly, letting the door slam shut behind you. “I am. What is it?”

“Did something happen?”

“What?” You blink, bemused, taking a closer look at Charles’ face. He looks more unsettled, here, but not quite as delusional as his words imply. “You called _me_. Remember?” More seriously, you continue: “Charles. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he says, not meeting your eyes. “Sorry for keeping you.”

“Look, even if I didn’t have so much experience calling out your bullshit—” that draws a snort of laughter out of him—“I wouldn’t take that as an answer. And we do have time.”

He’s smiling now, just a hint of one, but not the awkward thing from earlier, and it puts you at ease. “It’s not— _urgent_ , really. But you’ve been rather… different, lately. That’s why I was wondering.”

You frown. This isn’t what you were expecting. “Really? Different how?”

“You’ve been so happy.”

This isn’t what you were expecting at all.

“You stopped me this morning to tell me I was _too happy_?” It’s a jibe, but it’s without heart, and you both know it. “And why—”

“I haven’t been in your head, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Charles raises his hands. “Not that I would know—what you’ve been thinking. Really.”

You shake your head. “I’m not… worried about that, anymore. I know you wouldn’t read my mind without good reason.”

“See, that’s exactly it!” he exclaims. “Erik, what’s changed?”

“You know. You know everything’s changed for me.” Your voice is grave, a stark contrast to his sudden enthusiasm.

“Of course,” he says quietly. “But I’m talking about more than that. There is more. Because, see, when I’m not in your head, you actually have to tell me what you mean sometimes.”

“You could be.”

Charles’ face screws up confusedly. It’s almost comedic. “Come again?”

A smile pulls at your lips, but you keep looking at him seriously. “Why don’t you look in my head?”

“What? I don’t understand.” He pauses. “Why?”

“You’re the one who wanted to know what was ‘different.’” You let yourself grin openly, now. “Come on, won’t you be able to figure everything out?”

“I don’t—” Charles runs a hand over his head. His eyes are cast in shadow, the pale morning light falling away from his face. “I haven’t used my power like that in a while, Erik. You know that.”

“This is different.” You’re wildly certain. The truth reveals itself with the rising sun, its rays falling upon where it is inscribed into the walls of your home, something you should’ve known all along. Any thoughts of work, of anything elsewhere, are miles away, now. “You don’t have to. But I’m _asking_ you to. It’s not the same.”

“Erik,” he says, haltingly, and it’s breaking your heart. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” You hope he sees everything else that flits across your mind, the _like never before_ and _I wish you didn’t have to ask_. The final surety, dripping from your mind’s caverns in deep red: _only, with you, now. You could rip me apart, unasked, read the stories in my ribs and written up my heart, and I wish I wouldn’t mind, but I know I’d forgive you. I will always come back to you._ “I’m sure.”

It’s immediate—you don’t even have time to focus properly on Charles’ intent expression before you’re lost in the images he drags to the forefront of your mind. It’s the night before Cuba, and you’re in love, and you love him enough to take and fire bullets for him and look death in the eye and hold it in your hands, but do you love him enough to stay? It’s the night after Cuba, and Raven is sobbing bitterly in the room above you, and you’re sleeping, or you wish you were, with the helmet still squeezing your brain and regret, resignation, twisted bitterly around your lungs. You’re thinking, _I love you, but it doesn’t matter_. _You weren’t an option. It’s not you, it’s me_ —and you’ll hold this cheap platitude for now, until it gets too difficult to bear. Because you still left him bleeding—and then you’re alone, and you’re thinking: _I love you enough to miss you forever, even after I rot._ But even when he comes for you, after all this time, you have your anger, at least, and you’re resigned to it. _Hurt me, I think you have to_ , but—there it is— _it’s not just me, it’s you. Why_ weren’t _you an option?_

Here’s the logical answer—you’re repelled by his ideals, after all. But he’s still magnetic and you understand this inexorable draw better than anyone. At the end of the day, you’re still drawn before him. You leave, you return. Don’t you get it, Magneto? You’re old and greying and you’ve loved him for decades. You’re alone in a sea of people, still thinking: _I miss you_. _The world is changing and are you an option? Can I have you? Can I let myself stay?_ It’s what you both need, now more than ever. You’re tired of fighting magnetism, but this is almost gravity, not so intimately familiar but natural and true. You’re offering him a home and you want to offer him your heart, and suddenly, the scene changes—

You’re young, and struggling to remain afloat in an ocean of hatred. He’s drawing you back, and you choose to stay with him and you wish you could choose this forever. He’s young, and he’s in the waters of death, but he doesn’t know it yet. You’ll rip each other apart and then become the sharks, too, hungry for blood, tearing at each others’ wounds. He’s going to hurt you, but he doesn’t know this yet, either—but there’s one thing you both understand, in a fleeting moment of clarity through murky darkness:

You’re going to—you already—you wish you could love each other the way you deserve. 

Charles withdraws from your mind for the briefest moment, as if breaking the surface of your emotion for a breath of air, before delving into one final memory.

It’s the day before today. You wake up, but for some inarticulable reason, you walk to Charles’ room instead of leaving for work. His door is the slightest bit ajar, and you feel strangely compelled to push it open, though carefully as not to wake him. In this moment, any sense of intrusion you would feel otherwise is distant and foreign. 

Inside, dawn’s gentle, rosy glow streams in through the window above. It paints him in a near-ethereal light where he rests still, expression tranquil and soft with sleep. He looks ageless—the moment is timeless—and you’re scared to even breathe, as if it’ll invite the night’s dark waters into the room once again. So you stand still, and you drink him in, bathed in life’s constant radiance like you’ve never truly seen him before. Dawn is breaking. Your life, the world, everything that matters is painted across his skin and you love him with unspeakable enormity, like never before and like you always will. You are his, and your own, and everything will be as it should be.

Slowly, the memory dissipates. You blink it away and Charles is sitting directly before you again, eyes wet. You don’t need telepathy to understand his reluctance to let it go. 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” he says, voice hoarse. “But I knew you were there, and—it was nice.”

You should feel torn apart, exposed, in the light of everything he’s just seen. But his questions are answered, your response strangely freeing, though not altogether impossible for him to have predicted. Just difficult to articulate. 

“You know,” Charles continues after a pause, smiling tremulously, “not everyone benefits from this kind of communication. It’s a bit of a perk, isn’t it?”

Before, you’d do your best to remain impassive. Today, you’re certain there are tears in your eyes. “Really? And is it helping?”

Charles reaches forward, grips your hand suddenly, tightly. His fingers tremble briefly as they interlace between yours.

“Depends,” he says, and now you’re leaning toward each other, the pull already familiar. Your hand moves to cup his cheek of its own accord, just as you’d longed to the day before. “I hope this is clear enough for you.”

You meet his eyes, vivid and clear, and you know he sees you in your entirety. You look further, and you understand everything that matters and leave behind everything that doesn’t. You love him, and he loves you, and together, you are enough.

“I think it is,” you say, and his smile is soft and sure against your lips. 

**Author's Note:**

> today on: how much can i abuse the em dash
> 
> thank you for reading!!! as always, feedback is v much appreciated :)
> 
> you can find me on twitter @xiulophone!


End file.
